Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Labour Day is traditionally when the U.S. presidential election enters its final stretch. The next nine weeks will feature a handful of debates and a lot of frenzied campaigning. They will also be decisive, as new polls suggest Donald Trump is closing the gap on Hillary Clinton.The latest projections of CBC's Presidential Poll Tracker show that Clinton's lead over Trump has been cut in half over the last month. In the wake of her party's national convention, the Democratic nominee had opened up a margin of more than six points over her Republican rival in early August.Now, Clinton is estimated to have the support of 45.4 per cent of decided voters, followed closely by Trump at 42.2 per cent. That 3.2-point margin is the smallest it has been in the national polling average since the end of the Republican convention in July.You can read the rest of this analysis here.

National polls are measuring a real thing, but that real thing on its own doesn't matter.

That Trump is only winning some traditionally very safe red states by small margins (Texas, Kansas, Alaska) when Romney carried them by 20 points or more suggests that he has greater support elsewhere.

I don't think we've seen enough high-quality polling of individual states, particularly states which are not traditionally competitive.

Hillary Clinton truly is a terrible presidential candidate. If the Democrats had managed to select even a passably adequate nominee, I think they'd be running away with this.

Of course, I could say exactly the same thing about Donald Trump and the Republicans. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are very beatable candidates (not that kind of beating - don't get too excited, Brian Jean). Both parties must be kicking themselves. Much as Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden would have crushed Trump, I also think Lindsay Graham or Jeb Bush or John Kasich would have crushed Hillary Clinton.

Ira I agree and the US public is reduced to voting for the best of the worst. Biden I think could have slaughtered Trump. Warren wisely decided not to try but to go on doing the very valuable work she does.I'm not sure who of the Republicans would have been better but certainly Cruz would have been a major disaster !!!Trump's stated and repeated intention to tear up NAFTA would be a disaster for Canada so watch what you wish for !!

In 2008 both Clinton and Obama promised to renegotiate NAFTA. Didn't happen.

In 1993, Jean Chrétien promised to renegotiate NAFTA. Didn't happen.

NAFTA's not going anywhere.

I think Cruz would have beaten Clinton, too. He would have been a terrible President (because he's incapable of compromise, so nothing would have gotten done), but I think he would have been a competent candidate.

Winning the evangelical vote counts for a lot. Neither of the current candidates are particularly good at that.

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Details on the methodology of the poll aggregation and seat projections are available here and here. Methodology for the forecasting model used during election campaigns is available here.

Projections on this site are subject to the margins of error of the opinion polls included in the model, as well as the unpredictable nature of politics at the riding level. The degree of uncertainty in the projections is also reflected by the projections' high and low ranges, when noted.

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